We’re living through an era where the notion of the common good has been overwhelmed by the idea of individualism; me and mine. This is manifested on many fronts. One of the most dramatic is this worship of the Constitution as a charter of limited government. We’re also witnessing the denigration of the public sphere and the selling of privatization as the remedy.

Dane Smith’s recent op-edargues that the Federalists argued for ratification of the constitution because they believed that a strong national government was necessary to promote the common welfare. His work with Growth&Justice is predicated on the idea and the historic reality that government can and must play a strong role in achieving the public good.

Doug Rossinow will provide an historical perspective on this fundamental debate in America on contrasting ideas about the meaning of freedom. He teaches courses on the New Deal, Civil Rights and Reagan eras (among other things) — eras where these contrasting ideas (and practices) were in sharp conflict. His most recent book is Vision of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America

How can people be lured out of their self-imposed isolation – either technological or ideological – and see the value of working together toward the common good? How do you engage people, spurring both action on specific issues and reflection on the underlying values those actions represent? ISAIAH’sDoran Schrantz will help answer those questions.

Guest Host PROFESSOR TOM O'CONNELL of Metropolitan State University and Board Chair of CivicMedia/Minnesota will ask these questions of his guests:

DANE SMITH– Veteran journalist and Executive Director of Growth & Justice, a progressive think tank dedicated to making Minnesota more prosperous and fair.

They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it. -- Chief Red Cloud

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Laura Waterman Wittstock and Richard LaFortune with Andy Driscoll tomorrow on First Person Radio as we talk with Dr. Chris Mato Nunpa on Dakota treaty issues and the stipulations of the Treaty of 1805 which confirms the "Sioux Nation" rights to hunt and fish in what is now Minneapolis and other parts covered by the treaty language. Dr. Mato Nunpa is an expert on the treaty and he was recently stopped from fishing at Cedar Lake in Minneapolis. The treaty says in part:

ARTICLE 3. The United States promise on their part to permit the Sioux to pass, repass, hunt or make other uses of the said districts, as they have formerly done, without any other exception, but those specified in article first. (note: which was the creation of Ft. Snelling by Zebulon Pike, the white/US Treaty signatory).

Jim Anderson is the recently elected Chairman of Minnesota’s Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community. Anderson is a longtime Dakota activist, fluid in his storytelling and challenging to those who would flout the treaties he insists protect Indian rights to land uses others would deny his people. Back in February, Anderson and his family, usurped for a home a Mendota building that had served as a community center until the land’s owners – the owners of Axel’s Bonfire restaurants – decided to tear the building down for parking. Anderson was protesting the US government’s failure to recognize his tribe. His other protests have included re-asserting Indian rights to the sacred Coldwater site further north off Highway 55.

Together, Anderson and Mato Nunpa are taking their message of Dakota genocide and treaty violations to audiences and readers across the US.

They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it. -- Chief Red Cloud

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Laura Waterman Wittstock and Richard LaFortune with Andy Driscoll tomorrow on First Person Radio as we talk with Dr. Chris Mato Nunpa on Dakota treaty issues and the stipulations of the Treaty of 1805 which confirms the "Sioux Nation" rights to hunt and fish in what is now Minneapolis and other parts covered by the treaty language. Dr. Mato Nunpa is an expert on the treaty and he was recently stopped from fishing at Cedar Lake in Minneapolis. The treaty says in part:

ARTICLE 3. The United States promise on their part to permit the Sioux to pass, repass, hunt or make other uses of the said districts, as they have formerly done, without any other exception, but those specified in article first. (note: which was the creation of Ft. Snelling by Zebulon Pike, the white/US Treaty signatory).

Jim Anderson is the recently elected Chairman of Minnesota’s Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community. Anderson is a longtime Dakota activist, fluid in his storytelling and challenging to those who would flout the treaties he insists protect Indian rights to land uses others would deny his people. Back in February, Anderson and his family, usurped for a home a Mendota building that had served as a community center until the land’s owners – the owners of Axel’s Bonfire restaurants – decided to tear the building down for parking. Anderson was protesting the US government’s failure to recognize his tribe. His other protests have included re-asserting Indian rights to the sacred Coldwater site further north off Highway 55.

Together, Anderson and Mato Nunpa are taking their message of Dakota genocide and treaty violations to audiences and readers across the US.

Mary Lethert Wingerd, author of North Country: The Making of Minnesota, the untold history of how the land of the Dakota and Ojibwe became the State of Minnesota. This is an all-new a new history of our fair state, but beginning way back there when this was a land stewarded by our indigenous predecessors, the Ojibwe and Dakota (Sioux), centuries before Europeans first arrived and blended in with their brothers, then turned on them to settle those same lands by cheating trade and false treaties.